1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to lighting systems and more particularly to light bulb assemblies incorporating either mono-color or bi-color light-emitting diodes and having improved light-conducting and dispersion characteristics and to various wiring arrangements, light-emitting diode light strings, ornaments, decorations and control circuitry therefore.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many types of lighting systems are commercially available in the prior art and have been since the time of Edison. The primary light bulb in use today is the standard incandescent light bulb which comes in a variety of sizes and shapes and is adapted for many different and diverse uses. The primary shortcomings of the standard incandescent light bulb include the fact that it consumes very significant amounts of electrical power; it has a relatively short life due to frequent burnout, breakage, and the like; it dissipates a tremendous amount of heat which can burn a persons hands or otherwise injure person, pets or property. The incandescent light bulbs in use today present significant fire hazards in many uses, both from heat and from short circuits. Additionally, these bulbs have very slow switching speeds; they come in white only; and they break quite easily causing frequent replacement even for those bulbs placed in hard-to-reach areas where replacement is extremely time consuming and results in greatly increased expense.
For the last two decades, since the first miniature Christmas tree light came over from Italy, miniature Christmas tree bulbs and strings of such bulbs have been available commercially, particularly during the Christmas season. While these miniature light bulbs represent a significant improvement over the standard or larger incandescent light bulbs, they are subject to the same problems although usually to a lesser extent. While less power is consumed, less heat generated, and less of a fire hazard presented; but the power problem, and the heat and fire hazards are still very significant. Furthermore, even the miniature light bulbs or mini-lights have reduced switching times and come in white only. To obtain colors for decorative purposes and the like tinted bulbs are used over the incandescent light source. These bulbs break quite easily and are generally poorly constructed so that continued movement of the light strings during assembly, disassembly, storing etc. often results in the light bulb portion being separated or broken from the base, bulb breakage, or broken lead wires and sockets. They're relatively unreliable and since they are often wired in series, the loss of a single bulb through burnout or breakage results in loss of the entire string or string series segment. Such bulbs have been configured to light in a blinking or on-off manner or to light sequentially over a few colors but only relatively short strings can be used efficiently and DC power supplies and batteries which lend portability and the like cannot be readily used without significant loss of intensity down the string.
Since the light strings using miniature incandescent Christmas tree bulbs are usually single piece strings or string segments wired in series they must be connected end to end to reach around a Christmas tree or for use in Christmas decorations and the like. Again, if a single bulb burns out, the entire string is often lost. Therefore, parallel connections for multiple strings is used resulting in many awkward and unsightly pairs of wires. Additionally, the miniature light bulb strings are extremely difficult to run or wind down the trunk of the tree since bending often causes electrical shorts or breaks in the wire, they are difficult to assemble on the branches since they turn in all directions, usually upside down on the limbs.
Again the length of the strings is limited for a given power input without a loss of intensity down the string; and connections are made through standard plug and socket connections which are large, unsightly, difficult to make, and cause the inner end portion of the strings to sag down and be readily visible from outside the tree. The bases of the incandescent bulbs are adapted to position the bulb leads downward for connection to the wire so that the bulbs are positioned in all directions depending on the particular twist in the wire at the location in which the bulb is placed. Additionally, since the wire is usually pulled out to position the bulb away from the axis of the wire, the bulb rotates from its own weight and sags down rather than up as desired on typical Christmas tree applications.
The present invention provides an improved light-emitting diode bulb assembly and various light string and wiring configurations and control circuitry therefore for solving substantially all of the problems of the prior art and providing many unique advantages thereover.